Global crises like the Ebola outbreak force us to consider what “security” really means, said Sharon Burke, senior advisor for the New America Foundation. “Is security getting our kids to school and food on the table…or are you talking about military security and defense threats that require a weapon to counter?”

At this meeting Isabel Hilton (chinadialogue) will draw on new chinadialogue reporting on the causes and impacts of soil pollution in Hunan and other provinces. She will also highlight some of the researchers and NGOs investigating and promoting transparency on soil pollution. Qing Wang (World Bank) will discuss new World Bank projects that focus on soil clean-up of industrial sites across China and helping industrial parks better manage their waste.

Development and poverty reduction are inextricably linked to the water, energy and security nexus in Africa. There was some consensus that the impact of climate variability and extreme climate events depends not only on the severity of the crisis, but also on the vulnerability of the affected population – which is correlated with the level of development along with governance and other socio-cultural factors. Just as poverty can put communities at an increased level of vulnerability, so can sustainable development lead to improvements in climate-resilience and human security.

Russia is home to some of the world’s most polluted industrial sites, and Russians themselves are commonly perceived as ambivalent about steps necessary to protect the environment, especially if such steps might come at the cost of jobs. The speakers assessed current social concern in Russia over the environment, with particular attention paid to regional differences.

When she finished her dissertation on migration as a response to climate change in 2003, it was one of only a handful of scholarly papers published on the topic that year, said Susana Adamo, an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network. But in the decade since, interest in climate migration has exploded – in 2012, more than 10 times as many papers were published.

The Great Lakes-St Lawrence Basin contains 18 percent of the world's freshwater and is home to 42 million people. While these waters are essential to Canada and the United States' quality of life, the current state and future sustainability of the basin continue to challenge policy makers. Please join the Wilson Center's Canada Institute and Environmental Change and Security Program and the Great Lakes Policy Research Network for a half-day conference dedicated to bringing government, non-government, private sector, community organizations, and other stakeholders together to discuss the vital issue of Great Lakes environmental governance.